Here's To Life...

**I had a later night last night and by the time our study wound down, I felt I needed to wind down. Thus, no post.
**It's been said a thousand times here, but I am anxious to get my kids back here. This has been a long five days without them. **There have been a lot of rainy days and gray skies here. The temperatures are cooler, which has been great for my garden, but there's part of me that misses the oppressive summer heat. **Without explanation, I woke up around 4:30 this morning. It gave me some extra reading time, a little video game time and now it's giving me the desire to take a nap.
**Working from home can be problematic. Yesterday, I felt like making bread, so I made two loaves of bread. I ate half of one and placed the other one in the freezer. Today, I looked at the half loaf of bread and said, "I bet that I can make my own croutons". They're in the oven now. **They turned out well. Very well. They ended up being a great addition to my salad for lun…

You know, I questioned why I was thinking of writing anything today. I can’t say that anything really happened today, at least to me. I worked. I cleaned. I went grocery shopping. It rained. That’s pretty much all that happened under my roof. I am thankful that it’s only one more night without the kids. I’m ready for them to be here. The house is clean, the laundry is done and all of our food is in either the pantry or the fridge. I was able to talk to both of them today, which really brightened my spirits. Missing them was kind of eating away at me and after a few minimal texts with them, I decided to call. It wasn’t much, but it will tide me over. I fixed up the bike my parents brought for Julia. It took a bit of work, including sawing off parts of the bolt that holds the rear wheel with a hacksaw in order to tighten the training wheels for her. It’s definitely ready for her and I have the bruised knuckles to prove it. There was word today in the group dedicated to my old TV sta…

This evening just feels like the big let down. After my recently chronicled adventure on Friday, the July 4th holiday which also included a brief visit from my parents and then seeing the kids this morning, it seems I have little to look forward to other than my kids returning on Wednesday afternoon. There was a perfect moment today of my parents and my children sitting at my dining room table, eating a lunch of McDonald’s and just enjoying each other’s company. My kids and my parents; the four who care about me and that I see the most often, were all together in one place, if only for a moment. I think that’s why the ‘let down’ feeling seems more like a crash. Now my house is empty. Just me and the dog. Maybe it’s all a sign of how much I had enjoyed the past few days. Friday’s trek was planned for the most part and was something I had been planning on. It would have been nice to have someone like the kids there to share the experience, but I’m getting used to just doing things by…

**It's 7:38. I've been up for an hour and have already changed the sheets on the bed and emptied the dishwasher. My daughter is in my right arm, snuggling in and saying she doesn't want to go. My original plan for the day is being altered, so we'll make it up as we go. Could be interesting and could be a disaster.**I noticed a small change yesterday that told me a lot. **It's now 10:32. The kids are picked up and I have nothing to do here. Time to hit the road. **About an hour later and I am at a rest area on I-10 westbound. **Only in my car can we go from Ghost's "Year Zero" to TLC's "Waterfalls" **Roadside watermelon is the best. The man I bought them from said they were picked yesterday.  **Just hit a back up on US-231 due to a wreck  **You can always spot a local restaurant that moved into a former chain location without changing any of the architecture or design, kind of like a culinary hermit crab. The local Italian restaurant looks an a…

The evening sun is shining, casting a golden glow against the trees and parts of the house that are visible through the front door and the rectangular window above it. This house may not be mine, but the overabundance of windows and natural light is something that I love about it. I’m spending a lot of time here and if I am reading an email from the office correctly, it may be a lot more time. Every time the head guy in our department extends the ‘Friday Casual Dress Code’ for everyday wear, it directly correlates with the amount of time we’re at home. It began in March as a ‘reward’ for our hard work on something, which was the harbinger of working from home. Today’s email used the word ‘indefinitely’ to describe the duration of the dress code. We'll just wait and see. Last night Colin bolted me from a sound sleep to tell me that he couldn’t sleep. I asked if there was anything I could do and he said there wasn’t. I just told him to crawl into my bed and there he stayed until I…

**While on my walk this past Monday, I found that places in the sidewalk where there were portions broken or dangerously uneven, were painted pink. I guess it's easier to point out that there's a problem, but not do anything to fix it.
**We had a strong line of storms come through yesterday evening. It was on the way while I was mowing the yard and hit around 7-8PM. I didn't think we got much rain from it and definitely didn't think we got much wind. I walked out this morning to put the sprinkler on the tomato plants and found a dead limb had fallen next to the trampoline and was leaning on it. **If I truly have any plans for the weekend, it would be building a new nightstand for my son, building a new platform for the trash cans to sit on outside and beginning to work on building the website for my church.
**Our office greeted the new fiscal year by having our main system go completely down. It returned eventually, but it's never a good omen.
**I did take a quick t…